The Dangerous Risk of Parents Using Carrot and Stick Motivation
Carrot and stick motivation is motivation that uses external pressure or the promise of reward. Carrot and stick motivation often does work, albeit only in promoting short term behavior.
If you need something done one time and one time only, carrot and stick motivation might be the best option. However, if a behavior has long term consequences parents should avoid using carrot and stick motivation at all cost. In addition, avoid it if there’s a need for the behavior to serve as the foundation of a healthy habit.
This is because one of the dangerous side effects of carrot and stick motivation. This dangerous side effect is unethical behavior.
Motivating Unethical Behavior
When a child is locked in on earning a reward or avoiding a punishment, then that’s the only thing that matters to them. These short term blinders will narrow their vision and cloud their judgement.
For example, if a child is truly in fear of punishment for getting a bad grade, then the child may lie or cheat to avoid this punishment. They will lie to their parents about their grades or they will cheat on test to get better grades. What’s more, if they get away with this unethical behavior with no real consequences the child will make this unethical behavior their norm.
In this example, if a parent thinks that fear is the only way to motivate good behavior, the reality may actually be that the fear is motivating bad behavior.
The reverse of this example is also true. Rewarding children with money or “ice cream” for good grades can drive lying and cheating as well for similar reasons.
The bottom line is that carrot and sticks don’t account for motivating unethical behavior. It creates a success at all cost mentality and above all does not motivate good behavior over the long term.